Persons of ordinary skill in the art know how to form a variety of metal carbides, including those of the Group VIB metals (e.g., tungsten and molybdenum), by the pyrolysis of precursor compositions which can be obtained in a variety of ways.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,826,666 to R. M. Laine teaches the preparation of organometallic complexes of various metals as precursors.
Krumbe and co-workers react metal containing compounds (for example, metal halides or metalloid halides) with a carbon-hydroxy functional polymerizable compound (e.g., phenol with formaldehyde or furfuryl alcohol) to yield a composition which can be pyrolyzed (U.S. Pat. No. 4,948,762).
U.S. Pat. No. 4,950,626 to J. D. Birchall et al. reacts a compound of a metallic or non-metallic element having at least two groups reactive with hydroxyl groups and an organic compound having at least two hydroxyl groups to produce an oxygen-containing polymeric product which can be pyrolyzed to form a carbide.
Japanese Patent Publication No. 43479/74 discusses production of tungsten carbide powder by dispersing tungstic acid containing ammonium chloride or nitrate into an alcohol to form a slurry, heating the slurry to form a soluble tungstic ester which ultimately can be carbonized to form the carbide.
Japanese Patent Publication No. 61/192,345 speaks of forming catalytic carbides by carbonizing polyacids of tungsten and/or molybdenum with a carbonizing agent such as carbon monoxide or methane.
While certain disclosures exist in the prior art in regard to the reaction of tungsten with a hydroxy acid such as salicylic acid (see Journal of the Indian Chemical Society, Vol. 38, No. 3, 1961, pp. 153-154 and Zeitschrift fur anorganische und allgemeine Chemie, Band 315, pp. 211-212), such disclosures contain no suggestion that the resulting materials can be pyrolyzed to form a carbide, particularly one which possesses catalytic properties.